From their About page:
Project Liberty is stitching together an ecosystem of technologists, academics, policymakers and citizens committed to building a people-powered internet—where the data is ours to manage, the platforms are ours to govern, and the power is ours to reclaim.
I just heard Frank McCourt on a podcast plugging his book “Our Biggest Fight”.
It was great to hear someone with a voice talking about the problems we see with user data and social media, especially the problem of the Social Graph (the map of all your social connections, which includes weights and values).
Their solution to this problem was to develop a social networking protocol that enables any compliant app to use (think how email works - a standard protocol, SMTP), but encrypted and user data controlled by the user. They call it DSNP - Decentralized Social Networking Protocol.
I see both sides of their approach, I’m kind of ambivalent, lots of concern here long-term.
They’ve already acquired MeWe and have converted some users to this protocol. He wants to buy the US side of TikTok (if it becomes available) and convert it to DSNP, which would encrypt about 30 million US accounts.
I’m always cynical about stuff that sounds promising, but I don’t have the tech background to really dissect what they’re doing. Anyone understand this better?
I looked briefly through their site:
- Heavy on partnerships and ambition. Which is a good thing.
- Light on technical details and implementation.
- Hinting at former hype (blockchain) and current (AI)
But for me the biggest concern is development of a “new” decentralized protocol. IMHO there are enough protocols around to choose and pick from and help moving them forward instead of making one from scratch.